Russ Munisteri, CISSP and Director of Education at MyComputerCareer, just scored a trifecta of education cybersecurity coverage. Fresh off placements in District Administration and University Business, his insights on protecting schools from cyber threats landed in Campus Safety Magazine. The consistent message across all three? Schools are under attack, and most aren’t ready to fight back.
Why Schools Make Such Easy Targets
Cyberattacks on schools surged 35% last year, with average weekly incidents now in the thousands. The problem isn’t just volume. It’s that educational institutions are sitting ducks for a pretty straightforward reason: they have everything hackers want and lack most of what they need to defend themselves.
Schools store a gold mine of sensitive information including Social Security numbers, birth dates, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and sensitive research data. Meanwhile, many campuses still rely on outdated hardware and legacy software systems that were never built to handle today’s threat landscape.
And here’s the kicker: hackers know that educational institutions are among the most likely to pay up if they’re hit with a ransomware attack, with the median ransom payment for universities and colleges at $4.4 million. Most of that comes straight from taxpayer dollars.
The Threats Keep Getting Smarter
The Campus Safety piece breaks down the attack methods schools face today. We’re talking about vishing phone scams designed to catch staff off guard, smishing attacks where a single text message click can compromise entire networks (75% of organizations experienced these in 2023), and sophisticated AI-powered phishing emails that look completely legitimate.
Gone are the days of obviously fake emails with broken English. Today’s attacks are polished, personalized, and extremely hard to spot.
Eight Steps to Stronger Defense
Russ laid out practical moves schools can take right now. The list includes must-haves like multi-factor authentication and regular system updates, but also less obvious tactics. One standout recommendation: write disaster recovery documentation at a fifth-grade reading level with clear, step-by-step instructions. When you’re dealing with a live cyberattack, nobody has time to decode technical jargon.
The piece also emphasizes maintaining multiple backups across different types of media and locations, and adopting zero-trust architecture that assumes no device or user is trustworthy by default.
What This Means for Your Career
Three major education publications running the same expert’s insights in the span of weeks? That’s not random. It’s a signal that cybersecurity in education is a critical issue right now, and schools desperately need people who understand these threats.
For anyone building an IT career, this coverage highlights opportunity. Schools need cybersecurity professionals who can not only implement technical solutions but also train entire campus communities on security awareness. As Russ points out, cybersecurity is everyone’s job, from the IT team to the front desk.
The education sector alone represents thousands of job openings for IT professionals who can help institutions move from vulnerable to secure. And unlike some IT specializations, cybersecurity skills translate across every industry.
Ready to build the expertise schools and businesses are actively hiring for? Check out our cybersecurity training programs and see how MyComputerCareer prepares you for real-world IT challenges.